Hard telling just what to make of SCOTUS Chief Justice nominee John Roberts. President Bush has clearly picked a stealth nominee with a very limited paper trail. Hopefully the Democrats will do the proper work of an opposition party, and make a good effort to smoke him out some on his judicial outlook.
So far though, after two days of hearings, they don't seem to be making much progress. They're so set on getting in little narrow points niggling after him over civil rights or abortion that they can't see the big picture.
The level of Democratic senatorial discourse might be taken from this bit of Dianne Feinstein's opening statement, "As the only woman on the Committee, I believe I have an additional role in evaluating nominees for the Supreme Court. This entails representing the views and concerns of American women throughout this process." Apparently, Ms Feinstein has an exceptionally sensitive and powerful senatorial vagina that acts as some kind of satellite dish collecting special girls-only signals being sent out by every woman- thus making her the only representative spokesperson on the committee for all American women. Seriously, this person is a US Senator.
Then there's Ted Kennedy, focusing like a laser on a couple of sentences of notes on a case Roberts worked on as a young attorney representing the Reagan Justice Department. The argument being proposed was that private colleges should be subject to federal anti-discrimination laws because some of the individual students get federal financial aid.
Roberts had a couple of sentences of notes suggesting that this was a thin excuse legally, and that if the administration wants to apply their rules to private schools then they should look for a better legal argument for doing so. A-ha, says Senator Kennedy in high dudgeon, so you're opposed to civil rights. Why do you hate black people so much? Obviously I'm paraphrasing there, as Senator Kennedy's not that articulate, but that was pretty much his gist.
One thing for Roberts, his total confident calm and self-control look pretty awesome. He sat there listening to Feinstein's vagina monologues and trying patiently to answer Ted Kennedy's ridiculous picayune hostility without bringing the pimp hand down on them like any normal person would badly want to. He just smiles and nods, somewhat the way one might nod and go along with a retarded person, carefully trying not to hurt their feelings by noticing that they are figuratively licking the windows.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Very good stuff, Al. I like the fact that you point out that sensible Republicans just like everyone else, are sort of counting on the Democrats to ask good, insightful questions and actually find out what Roberts believes. And I fear they're not coming through for us.
Dave
2 - steve
bush made a wise decision to bump roberts to C/J. he will be C/J for nearly 30 years! now he can pick someone a little less moderate...a real hard-core conservative!!! too bad ann coulter isnt eligible...
3 - Al Barger
Actually, Ann Coulter would be eligible. Supreme Court nominees needn't even be attorneys.
However, one might argue that delightful though her rantings might be on Fox, perhaps she lacks an appropriately judicial temperment.
4 - alethinos59
Yes... Let's PACK the Court... It would be wonderful to see so many decisions rolled back, like Brown, various elements of the '64 Civil Rights Act, Griswold, (if they could) the Federal Minimum Wage Act, the Miranda Rule... On and on and on...
They can bring back Plessey, Lochner... The unions have nearly ceased to exist anyway. They could roll back every single advance workers have gained in the last century...
Yes packing the Court would be wonderful...
Of course packing the Court with ultra liberals would be JUST as bad...
Of course we could just STOP PACKING the friggin' Court... There's a thought... Nominate someone based on sound reasoning skills, efforts to uphold the Constitution, etc., like so many of the Founding Fathers wished for...
That would be asking too much though...
5 - Al Barger
But alethinos, you seem to be so set on having a liberal fit that you seem to have missed my basic question: What exactly would constitute "upholding the Constitution" at this juncture?
6 - Baronius
Let's start the Justice Coulter grassroots movement!
Al, that's some very good analysis. I've been amazed at the Democrats' questions, obviously unanswerable, followed by "why aren't you answering anything?". I've been disappointed by several Republicans who've pretty much the same thing. Biden flipped out at one point, calling the process "kabuki theater". I'd say the hearings look more like "orange you glad I didn't say banana".
But you highlighted a problem with the Court, one that Walter Williams hammers away on. If we actually applied the Constitution, it would eliminate a sizable portion of the federal government. Supposedly one of the big differences between Scalia and Thomas is that Scalia respects precedent more. They say Thomas would reverse a lot.
It reminds me of a Margaret Thatcher line: "Sometimes, in order to be a conservative, you have to be a radical".
I found that Rehnquist decision reaffirming Miranda particularly bad. Rehnquist said that despite Miranda's weakness, it should be retained since everyone is familiar it. My thought, if everyone is familiar with the reading of the rights, then they're familiar with the rights, which voids the need for Miranda.
7 - Al Barger
Obviously Ann would be a poor judge, but a "Justice Coulter grassroots movement" might be worthwhile just to see the pinkos fainting in the streets.
8 - alethinos59
Al, what I want and what is now impossible is this: a Court which realizes the truth of what Plato said, that men will argue endlessly over "natural rights" because they don't for one moment attempt to discover the source of those supposed "rights", namely Natual Law. Not the NL that the Right has come to appropriate in the past two decades, but the Platonic NL that so many of the Founding Fathers were in love with (even though they too weren't very clear on how to "discover" it).
Hence we have the two most neglected Amendments in the Bill of Rights - the IX and X.
In those TWO we see an ingenious attempt to CREATE SOME mechanism of discovering NL. Because the Founding Fathers were smart enough to realize that the Constitution could NOT be simply a piece of parchment FROZEN in time... Had they actually seen the Law like that - let alone the (hopefully) SOURCE of GOOD LAW - JUSTICE, then they would have simply taken English Law, in toto and brought it here...
This is a very LONG way to go in my explaining that I do NOT want the COURT PACKED with ANY idealogue, even one as smooth as Roberts. I don't want a LIBERAL idealogue either.
What I want is what the Founding Fathers wanted for the Court and what they almost immediately made IMPOSSIBLE to accomplish... AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY that stands as a TRULY independent third branch...
I know... If wishes were... Yada..
Alethinos
9 - Al Barger
But I still don't know just what you mean by that in point of actual modern practice. What would they need to do to impress you that they were truly a properly "INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY"?
10 - alethinos59
No Senate Confirmation hearings. They didn't exist way back when. That would "help". But since many of the Founders didn't want partisan political parties to exist either this is a bit like closing the barn door...
I am sure there is - if we had statesmen as opposed to punk politicians - so way to at least patch up this "wound". A formal process involving a CHECK on attempts to PACK the Court. In much the same way as there are valiant attempts to STRIP $$ from the election process...
Perhaps some day if we finally have enough politicians with balls to PASS a comprehensive election reform law we might be able to move on to a far more mature process of choosing justices...
but that would bring up a whole host of other problems - deeply philosophical - going back to the Natural Law stuff I mentioned earlier..
By the way Roberts has a REAL issue with Roe-v-Wade which hinges on Griswold which hinges COMPLETELY on the IX Amendment...
Alethinos
11 - Mike Kole
Alas- to date, the lawmakers have passed McCain-Feingold, the sort of campaign finance "reform" that is only an incumbent protection plan. Self-preservation and self-promotion is Job One, as McCain-Feingold, and the confirmation hearings grandstanding (see: Kennedy, Biden, et al) show so well.
As for packing the Court, recall that 7 of the 9 most recent Justices (I'm including Rehnquist here) were appointed by Republican presidents. If you didn't know that fact, it would be hard to guess at it based on their decisions. Anyway, perhaps Al or Nalle, or someone else would care to discuss the real, full-blown attempt to pack the Court by doubling it's size with toadies, in '36.
P.S.: I love saying '7 of 9'.
12 - alethinos59
Yes... Now... If we could pack the Court with a host of 7 OF 9s THAT would be worth it...
No one would argue...
Well, the wives would...
And the Court would ITSELF be packed every day with guys checking things out...
And ROBES would DEFINITELY be OUT as a standard issue on the bench...
And while we're at it let's have the 7 of 9s ON THE BENCH baby...
OK... It's late, I'm tired...
(checking to see if there is a Voyager rerun on right now...)
13 - Bob A. Booey
What kind of self-respecting libertarian thinks abortion should be illegal in this country?
And how ignorant do you have to be to really think that there'd be a current case that would be granted cert where the Supreme Court (no, calling it SCOTUS doesn't make your ignorance of the law any less galling) would be able to overturn Social Security and the "New Deal" as a matter of Constitutional law? THAT, my friend, would be some major-league judicial review that would require more leaps of legal precedent than any in the history of the modern Court.
Your stupid and petty dismissal of Feinstein's questions as "vagina monologues" isn't hip, isn't funny, and is patent sexism by a man afraid of women.
The fact that you respect Ann Coulter more than Feinstein says all any woman needs to know about your politics and credibility in speaking about issues like abortion.
That is all.
14 - Kevin Surbaugh
I had a pretty good laugh when I stopped while flipping Channels to see what was happening and Sen. Biden and Roberts were having an exchange, then another Senator, I didn't catch his name. I think he was the Chairman, said that he had a quote from a Senator that once was a great and smart Senator, "he still is" he even offered. Senator Biden Chimed in and joked he was smarter. Which the other Sen. apparently didn't catch, because he asked what and Biden laughed and shoke him off. The quote was then read and we learned that the Senator that made the Statement was senator Biden.
oh how I found that funny Senator Biden is "Smarter" then himself.
as I write this, it kind of reminds me Edgar Allen Poe...where his charecter, is being followed by someone, William Wilson, and finally he kills his pursuer...only to be told "In me didst thou exist-and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."
15 - red state
First off Joe Beiden is a douchebag. There's nothing more he likes to hear then the sound of his own voice.
In 1993 when Ginsberg was nominated under Clinton Beiden publicly stated that Supreme Court nominees did not have to and should not answer ideological questions or questions about cases they might face. Now it's a different story with him. Friggin hypocrite.
Next, Mr. Bob A. Booey, a Howard Stern fan, always the most intelligient and mentally balanced of people, that was sarcasm in case you didn't pick up on it. Since when does a libertarian have to believe abortion should be legal? Libertarians don't believe murder should be legal and the govt. should just stay out of people killing each other so if one particular libertarian believes abortion is murder that is thier perogative.
As for that piece of smut the vagina monlogues it's nice to see you think of that as art. IN it a 30 something year old women gets a 13 year old girl drunk and then rapes her. The girl says after the rape "it was rape, but the good kind of rape." And all you lefties love this play. All the militant feminists love this play. It is "liberating" and "allows a woman to express herself." I don't see what's so great abotu an adult female raping a 13 year old girl. Would all these feminazis think it was just as good if a 30 year old man raped a 13 year old girl? I bet they wouldn't but then just about anything a man does is unacceptable to these people. So I guess it's ok for the left to endorse pedophilia under the guise of art if it fit's into their own little twisted view of the world huh Booey?
Y
16 - Bob A. Booey
Red State, what you wrote is possibly the stupidest piece of idiocy written by a semi-literate pud that I've ever read.
Please never, ever attempt to communicate with any human being again. It'll only lead to failure for you. Do the entire world a favor and never bother anyone with your simple thoughts and ridiculously childish emotions EVER again. Never open your mouth, never write with your pen, never type on the Internet. Words are not for you.
Who's Howard Stern? Never heard of him.
That is all.
17 - Red State
What's wrong Bob A. Booey?
Can't handle the truth?
Maybe you're a card carrying member of NAMBLA mr. Booey.
18 - Bob A. Booey
Red State, you're officially the biggest idiot I've ever read on this site.
That is all.
19 - Dave Nalle
That seems a bit excessive, Babs. He has at least studeid the Vagina Monologues in detail. Plus as long as billy is posting the position of village idiot is taken.
Dave
20 - red state
Is that all you're capable of Booey?
Name calling.
21 - Bob A. Booey
Dude, that's all you do.
NAMBLA? Douchebag?
I think you've listened to too much of this Howard Stern, whoever he is.
That is all.
22 - Nancy
How about Village Bigot? Or is that one taken by Mark the SS?
23 - red state
MMM I only called you a member of Nambla after your long personal attack on me in which you called me a pud.
And as for the douchebag remark that was directed at Joe Beiden and not anyone posting on this site.
Sorry if your'e incapable of responding to the substantive factual remarks I made about what Joe Beiden said when Ginsberg was nominated and about the Vagina monologues but instead feel it necessary to call me a "pud" and personally attack me Booey, but that's your problem not mine.
I imagine your next post will be another personal attack on me and not a response to the points I made several posts ago.
24 - Bob A. Booey
RedState, you have no substantive facts.
I don't see any evidence for what you say about Biden during the Ginsberg hearings. In fact, you can even spell Joe Biden's name (among many other very common words you mis-spell, including, quite comically "intelligient") right, so excuse me if I don't take your word for it. Find me an excerpt from Congressional testimony for your claim.
And I have no idea what you're rambling about with the Vagina Monologues. I don't know anything about them, nor do I care about your pointless rants about "Feminazis" due to your fear of women.
Your lack of punctuation, syntax, and spelling make it pretty easy not to take what you say seriously.
Your backwards, hateful ranting about various social groups is sad.
Are practical joe, max, and red state all the same fool?
That is all.
25 - red state
You were the first person to bring up the Vagina monlogues and now you know nothing about them?
As for Joe Biden, he did say what I said he said. The fact that you doubt it doesn't make it untrue. I can't help it if you're ignorant of the facts and too lazy to look into the matter for yourself.
As for hating women, what have I said to make you think that? Disliking far left militant feminists who barely qualify as women does not mean I "hate women."
Lastly, only an idiot resorts to pointing out typing (not spelling) errors when he can't win an argument.
Nice to see you're nothing liek the typical liberal labelling all who disagree with your point of view on any social a homophobe, racist, misogynist or sexist though.